Emerson Lake & Palmer: Works Volume 1 (1977)
KEITH EMERSON
Piano Concerto No. 1
First Movement: Allegro Giojoso
Second Movement: Andante Molto Cantabile
Third Movement: Toccata Con Fuoco
GREG LAKE
Lend Your Love to Me Tonight
C'est La Vie
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Nobody Loves You Like I Do
Closer to Believing
CARL PALMER
The Enemy God Dances with the Black Spirits
L. A. Nights
New Orleans
Bach Two Part Invention in D Minor
Food For Your Soul
Tank
EMERSON LAKE & PALMER
Fanfare For The Common Man
Pirates
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After
Brain Salad Surgery and the highly successful "Someone Get Me A Ladder" Tour, capping off five albums and tours in four years, it was time for a much-needed break. They took some time off, and pursued various other projects, musical and otherwise. Keith, Greg, and Carl considered making solo albums, since that's what you do when your band takes a break. Once again, they looked to Yes for guidance. Yes had taken a sabbatical the previous year and each of its members had recorded solo albums. The combined sales of all five solo albums did not match the sales of even a single album by the band. ELP worried that the results would be similar for them.
Their solution was
Works Volume 1, a double LP, with one side devoted to each member, and the fourth side featuring the combined talents of Emerson Lake & Palmer. Each side also features a full orchestra, adding depth and power to both the invididual and group compositions. After three years, it was the biggest Emerson Lake & Palmer album yet. Was it worth the wait? That depends on whom you ask.
Keith Emerson, like many classically trained pianists, dreamed of writing and performing his own piano concerto, and with his status in the music industry at the time, he was able to realize his dream. Side One of the album was Keith Emerson's "Piano Concerto No. 1". He of course plays a Steinway grand piano, and is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Mayer, who also helped with the orchestration. At just over 18 minutes, it's a respectable work, a real piano concerto in the sonata format.
Greg Lake's side is five of his songs. They're about the same quality as the individual songs which had appeared on ELP albums over the years, but they are enhanced here by an orchestra rather than Emerson and Palmer. Keith does play on one of the songs.
Carl Palmer's side is perhaps the most interesting musically. Three of the pieces ("The Enemy God", "Food For Your Soul", and "Tank") are hard-driving orchestral pieces, giving Carl a chance to really cut loose on the drum kit. "Tank" is an orchestrated version of the same piece from the first Emerson Lake & Palmer album. The drum solo in the middle has been removed, but the addition of a full orchestra more than makes up for it. "L. A. Nights" is another rocker, featuring Joe Walsh on guitar and scat vocals, and Ian McDonald on saxophone. Bach's "Two Part Invention in D Minor" is a nice treatment on tuned percussion of a piece most people will recognize right away. Carl plays the vibraphone and his buddy James Blades plays the marimba. The other piece, "New Orleans", is something of an oddity. Barely more than an idea or two, it's the shortest work other than the Bach piece, though it does feature some nice percussion work, which obviously is the idea.
The group side features two longer pieces. To satisfy the "ELP rock treatment of a classical piece" quota, we get Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". It starts innocently enough, with tympani and the actual fanfare played by trumpets. Then it goes into a jam by just ELP, featuring Keith taking an extended solo on the Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer (his newest toy). They eventually come back to the original theme and finish the piece.
During the ELP hiatus, Keith Emerson was approached to write a film score. The movie was to be a film adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's
The Dogs of War. It was ultimately cancelled, but not before Emerson had written quite a bit of music. He rearranged some of it into a 13-minute suite, Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield added a few reams of lyrics, and the result was "Pirates", the last great ELP epic. The Orchestra de l'Opera de Paris is present throughout, but so are Emerson Lake & Palmer. It is an amazing work. Today, it's not that uncommon to hear synthesizers and electric guitars alongside real strings and brass; back then it was nearly unhead-of.
There are a obviously a number of things that make
Works Volume 1 different from the others. Specifically devoting equal time to each member to indulge himself however he chose was new. The presence of a full symphony orchestra permeating everything from classical to rock was new. Also, every ELP album up to this point had been produced by Greg Lake. Here, each member produced his own portion of the album. Greg produced his side and the group side.
In some ways, this is the greatest ELP album of them all. I can also see why some would ignore just about all of it. If you have no interest in modern classical music, Keith's piano concerto won't do anything for you. If Greg's ballads don't do much for you, there's another quarter of the album. I think Carl's side is my favorite and the most consistent, but not everyone is impressed by orchestral rock. And even the two mini-epics by the group will not appeal to everyone. Honestly, "Fanfare for the Common Man" is interesting the first few times, but after a while you realize that it's just a long synth solo bookended by a fanfare.
Personally, I consider "Pirates" a masterpiece. It's obviously quite different from "Karn Evil 9", but I love them both equally, in different ways. It's got a lot of lyrics, and I made it a point to learn them all. I love cranking it out in the car and singing along, imagining myself as the pirate captain who just happens to be a monster tenor.
The "Works" tour was both hugely successful and a complete disaster. They decided to take an orchestra on the road with them. With all the orchestral works on the album, a suite from
Pictures at an Exhibition, and a handful of other songs, it was an amazing show, an artistic triumph for rock and roll.
But there were a number of limitations imposed by the musicians' union (to which the orchestra members belonged) which crippled the tour. One was a rule that they could not travel more than 100 miles per day. Rock bands routinely travelled 100 miles or more between shows, but not symphony orchestras. The established model couldn't be used to predict ticket sales. Fans will travel 50 miles or more to see a concert, so ELP ended up playing to half-empty venues. Another limitations was a rule that they could only play three shows per week. Again, this cut deeply into the revenue stream.
Before they were halfway through the tour, they were nearly bankrupt. The decision was made to drop the orchestra. The contract was set up so that they were paid for the entire tour, but their salaries weren't actually the greatest expense. Putting them up in hotels the entire tour, plus all the food, plus all the extra stage gear and trucks to move it all, were the real expense. Many orchestra members offerred to forfeit their salaries if they could finish the tour. They
wanted to finish the tour; it was an incredible show. But the only way for the tour to have any chance of turning a profit was to cut the orchestra and all the added expense that went with it. The orchestra played a few select venues, including Madison Square Garden. This was doable, since most of them lived in New York City anyway.
I saw the
Works tour, but after the orchestra had been dropped. "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pirates" were still both pretty cool, but definitely not the same without the orchestra. "Tarkus" was great, but again, I could only wonder what it would've sounded like. Same with "Pictures at an Exhibition". But it was the one and only time I saw Emerson Lake & Palmer, and I did get to see them, and it was still a hell of a show.
Topic: Emerson Lake & Palmer Discography (Read 47157 times)
